1. Technical Field
The disclosed embodiments relate to the ranking of both sponsored and organic search results on a search results page, and more particularly, to re-ranking sponsored search results based on linking associations between organic and sponsored search results and other associated web documents.
2. Related Art
Today, major Internet search engines such as Yahoo! of Sunnyvale, Calif. and Google of Mountain View, Calif., generally deliver sponsored search results primarily by order of which advertiser pays the most per click (PPC) or per action (PPA), etc., although relevancy now plays a role in some ranking models. Accordingly, the first-listed sponsored search results (or sponsored advertisements) are owned by advertisers that have bid the highest in an online auction for that first-listed sponsored search result position, subject to some relevancy-based adjustments at the time of delivering the sponsored search results to the search results page. As advertisers (or bidders) bid less, they are usually listed in positions farther down the search results page, which may mean being removed from the north (or top) ad positions to the east (or right) ad positions, or being moved from the east ad positions to the south (or bottom) ad positions. Again, this is subject to any relevancy-based adjustments in some models for delivery of sponsored search results.
The model for listing sponsored search results just described, however, does not necessarily result in the highest number of clicks on any given sponsored search result listing, and the Internet search engines wish to maximize such clicks to increase their revenue. Furthermore, sponsored search advertisers often submit listings that provide less information than would be necessary to assure good relevancy when they are being delivered in response to specific search queries. Higher click rates may be obtainable if the highest-listed sponsored search results also were more relevant to the search query term(s) in response to which they are delivered to the search results pages of the search engine.